47% and the media
September 18, 2012 6 Comments
To those of us who hang out in the liberal blogosphere, there isn’t anything all that surprising about Romney’s comments. This 47% ridiculousness has been making its way all around the right-wing and Fox News types– and being appropriately debunked by liberal bloggers and thinktanks– for quite a while now. Now, however, thanks to Romney, the 47% trope has gone into wide release. And the good news is that it means not just Ezra Klein and Kevin Drum, etc., but CNN, NPR, the Post and Times News pages, etc., are now debunking it. Of course, it’s obvious this debunking won’t affect the hard-core true believers. But there’s plenty of non true believers who’ve had some vague sense of this 47% idea, but now presumably (hopefully) know better. That’s a good thing. In a perfect world, it would also mean people might be a little more skeptical or think a little harder next time they hear a statistic like this from Republicans. Not that I’m holding my breath.
About Steve Greene
Isn’t it accurate that 47% of adults sort is it households?) pay no Federal income tax. So this isn’t a cut and dried issue of accuracy.
I think what liberals miss in the story is the “lesson” that many conservatives take from the increasingly larger share of Americans who benefit directly from government spending. (And I mean ‘directly’ to distinguish this from indirect benefits such as clean air and water, national defense, etc.) I believe it is accurate to say that tax deductions have constituencies. And once there is a large enough constituency then it is difficult if not impossible to roll back the deduction (e.g., deductions for children, home ownership, medical expenses, charitable donations, etc). Similarly, once the government subsidizes certain expenses (e.g., student loans, health insurance) it becomes almost impossible to scale back, much less eliminate. Individuals and organizations (including businesses) will vote for or lobby on behalf of maintaining the status quo. The fear by many conservatives is that as more people get more goodies from the government it will become impossible rein in expenses. I think the logic here is essentially correct. The problem lies in determining whose ox gets gored when budget cuts are necessary.
Ezra and Drum have been pointing out that this is largely due to the Earned Income Tax Credit, which was a Republican idea. Are Americans really getting that much more goodies from the government. The 47% is not about goodies from the government– it’s about lifecycle effects, a down economy, and the EITC. I think Brooks was dead-on about the American ethic.
And heck, if I didn’t come across this Yglesias post addressing lifecycle effects right after I posted: http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/09/18/the_lifecycle_and_american_class_structure.html
“The fear by many conservatives is that as more people get more goodies from the government it will become impossible rein in expenses.”
I know you’re only stating the conservative position, but as more people get more goodies from the government, these cease to become “goodies” and instead become basic services or exemptions that most reasonable people believe should be offered by the government.
If everyone ends up getting a “goodie” that he or she does not want to give up, then there is no one left who disagrees.
Itchy: Think about farm subsidies, especially for sugar and rice, mining subsidies in the form of leasing rates that were determined in the 1870s, and grazing rights — each of these has a powerful constituency that has fought against reductions or revision to the policy. But I don’t think all of these can sensibly be defined as a necessary entitlement. That’s the problem — the beneficiaries of government payouts or subsidies will define the policy as a basic entitlement, independent of the actual merit or need. Furthermore, these industries get used to the subsidy and build their business model around the subsidy. In effect, they become dependent on them.
One mans economic incentive is another mans entitlement.